


One Day

by SatiricalDraperies



Series: Tolkien Gen Week 2020 [3]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Elf/Human Relationship(s), Elf/Valar Relationships, Gen, Post-TFOG, aromantic Voronwë
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-09
Updated: 2020-07-09
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:41:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25157155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SatiricalDraperies/pseuds/SatiricalDraperies
Summary: Voronwë speaks to Ulmo late at night.
Relationships: Tuor & Voronwë, Ulmo & Voronwë
Series: Tolkien Gen Week 2020 [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1819642
Comments: 2
Kudos: 10
Collections: Tolkien Gen Week 2020





	One Day

**Author's Note:**

> Tolkien Gen Week 2020  
> day 3: gray spaces

Voronwë returns to the ocean. Time and time again, he returns to the ocean. It’s the constancy, he thinks. That, or the contradiction. Ulmo hates him and loves him in equal measure and both are intense.

He is not sure which is worse.

The others have set up camp further inland. Voronwë can see the plume of smoke rising above the treeline, but it could almost be mistaken for mist on this cloudy night. 

Voronwë steps into the surf. It’s cold, even for this time of year.

“What is it?” he asks. He doesn’t _need_ to speak out loud for the Vala to hear him, but it helps. 

Him, that is. Ulmo needs no help.

“Do not make me into more than I am.”

Ulmo speaks in gurgles, in crashes, in babbles. He speaks in eddies and curls and currents. He speaks in the water and Voronwë must bring himself to it to truly hear his words.

“Help is perhaps the wrong word, but I need it nonetheless. I need you.”

And there it is. Voronwë hates when he says that. Ulmo needed Turgon; he needed Tuor. He did not _need_ Voronwë.

“Do not presume to know what I need, my little tidal wave.”

“Why do you call me that?”

“You always return.” He’s right, of course, but that doesn’t mean Voronwë has to admit it. “Why have you come this time?”

“Is it not enough to want to visit you?”

Ulmo laughs in a splash up against Voronwë’s legs. He used to make the mistake of wearing his trousers in the ocean, but asking Ulmo to speak without changing the water level is like asking an elf to speak without any vowels: it’s impossible. Now Voronwë has accepted the inevitable and wades into the water completely naked, his trousers and tunic rolled up neatly further up the beach.

“I don’t flatter myself,” Ulmo says.

Voronwë raises an eyebrow and lets out a huff of air. “Maybe I just needed a change of scenery.”

“A change of company, more likely.” Sometimes Voronwë hates how well Ulmo knows him.

“I love him,” he says.

“But that’s not enough.”

“No.”

Ulmo sighs a spray of mist. 

“Come to me,” he says. 

“I can’t,” Voronwë says. “I need to get back to the camp.”

“No, my tides. You need to get some rest. It cannot be easy, protecting Tuor and Idril and their child all of the time.”

“You could help,” Voronwë says petulantly. “Tuor would not object.”

“I could drown all the lands,” Ulmo says. “I could wash away all of his enemies. I could draw a moat seven leagues wide and seventy leagues deep to keep away all who would do him harm.”

“But you won’t.”

“No.”

“And all because it’s not meant to be. What is so important that you cannot change it? You are change itself. Why can you not carve out a path for Tuor?”

“I am not the only force in this world. You know this.”

“Sometimes it feels like you are,” Voronwë says. The surf comes up to his chest now. He isn’t sure if he’s been walking in deeper or if Ulmo has been moving the water to meet him. Both, probably.

“I am not alone.”

“Aren’t you?” Voronwë asks. “You say there are others in the deeps with you but I have never seen them, not in all my years.”

“There is much you have not seen.”

“So show me. Show me that you aren’t alone.”

The water stills and for a moment, Voronwë thinks that Ulmo has left him. 

“Look closer,” Ulmo whispers. Voronwë widens his eyes in the low light, but all he can see is his reflection on the glassy surface.

“Oh,” he says. “You’re being sappy.”

“I think I have the right,” Ulmo says as he materializes in the waters behind Voronwë. He watches in the reflection as the Vala sculpts a torso, a chest, a head with a thick beard and hair flowing out from the crown. Voronwë leans back into him, not daring to take his eyes off of their shared image. The water holds him, cool and clear. It’s nice, but it isn’t alive. Not in the way that Voronwë is. Not in the way that Tuor is.

“You think of him even now,” Ulmo remarks. His voice doesn’t rumble in his chest; it rolls in waves instead. 

“He is…” Voronwë tries to think of the right word but cannot.

“You love him but he is not your lover; you follow him but he is not your leader; you protect him but he is not your brother. Can you only define him in what he is not?”

Voronwë smiles sadly. “Yet he is a lover and a leader. Many of the men consider him a brother. It is not Tuor that is the issue.”

“Being unable to define something is not an issue,” Ulmo says. “ _You_ are not an issue, Voronwë.”

The waves continue to pound the shore, a constant heartbeat.

“Do you mean it?” he asks. “When you ask me to come beneath the waves with you.”

“Always,” Ulmo says. 

“One day, there will be nothing left for me on the land. Will you wait?” Voronwë closes his eyes, feeling the steady flow of water all around him.

“For you, my tidal wave? I will wait forever and a day.”

“Good,” Voronwë says, drawing himself back from the temptation of the riptide. “One day, I will return to the ocean.”


End file.
